28) Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Part 3

Remember the day
I set you free
I told you you could always count on me, darling
From that day on, I made a vow
I'll be there when you want me
Someway, somehow

Hello and welcome to another episode of Learning English with Lyrics, I am your host Jake, and today we are continuing our breakdown of the song "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. If this is your first time listening to this podcast, I am very happy that you decided to join us today. One very quick note: before you listen to this episode, I would highly recommend going back and listening to the episode titled "Introduction". It gives a quick explanation of how this podcast works which will help you as you listen. For everyone else, welcome back! If you haven't listened to Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I'd recommend going back and listening to them before continuing.

I'm sorry about the late episode today everybody. I had a very busy weekend and I have spent all day trying to catch up on everything I needed to get done! Life gets a little busy sometimes.

Alright, without further ado, let's get back to it. We'll pick up right where we left off last time.

The next line of our song says: "Remember the day I set you free"

This is an interesting phrase! The tricky thing about the phrase is the form. Normally, when a verb starts a sentence like that, it's an imperative. That is to say, you're commanding someone to do something. For example, if I say, "Will you go buy some milk for me?", that is a question. I'm asking someone to buy milk for me. But if I put the verb in the front, and change it from a question into a statement, "Buy some milk for me!", it's now a command or an imperative. "Go to your room!" "Get your work done!" "Eat more donuts!"

It would be easy to think that "Remember the day" is similarly a command, especially since in the song it's difficult to tell if he's asking a question or not. It's hard to hear the inflection that normally indicates a question. But commanding someone to remember something is pretty rare. This is actually a shortening of the phrase "Do you remember?". We could change it to, "Do you remember the day that I set you free?" The singer is asking this other person to recall something, to remember a particular day.

And which day is that? Well, it's the day that he set her free. This is a downright strange phrase. "set" is a bit of a an odd word here, don't you think? Normally, we use it when referring to objects. "I set down my fork." or "I set my donut on my plate." It means to place something, to put it somewhere, generally somewhere specific. In our examples, down or my plate.

"Setting" something can also mean to fix something in place. In other words, to put something in a particular position or location, or into a particular status. Don't worry, I'll give some examples. To "set a clock" for example, means to fix the clock to a particular time. Normally, this means to put the clock at the correct time. If I replace my watch battery, I  have to "set my watch" to the correct time. In many countries around the world, we set our clocks forward or backwards an hour two times per year.

This is connected to the word "reset", which means to "set" something back to how it was initially. Similarly, to "set up" something, means to assemble it, to put it together, or to get it ready to be used.

"Setting" something is often related to some kind of machine or mechanism. Something that has to be manually adjusted in some way. For example, if you wish to catch an animal, you need to "set a trap". Usually, a trap has some kind of mechanism that is triggered by the movement or weight of the animal. Once it's triggered, the mechanism is activated and the animal is caught in the trap.

"Setting" the trap means that you are putting it into the state where it is ready to be activated by the animal.

The opposite of "setting a trap" is "setting someone or something free". It doesn't really make sense to me to be honest, as there is no "setting" involved. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. I presume there is some kind of explanation, but I wasn't able to find it. If YOU can find an explanation for the phrase "set free", let me know! Regardless, to "set someone or something free" means that they were trapped, or restrained in some way, and you have made them free again. In fact, you can drop the word "set" altogether if you'd like, and just say "free someone or something".

Some examples. "I was caught in the bear trap, but I was able to free myself." Another one. "After the American Civil War, many slaves were set free." And one more. "I was not able to free myself from my donut addiction."

Can you think of any more examples?

Alright, let's take a look at our next line.

"I told you you could always count on me, darling"

This line is pretty simple, though I'd like to point out of course the somewhat confusing doubling of the word "you". "I told you you could". This is a part of English that confuses many people. A clearer phrase would be "I told you THAT you could always count on me", but often in English we drop the word "that". It's completely fine to drop the word "that", but of course it can sound confusing sometimes, especially when you end up repeating the same word twice! The first "you" is the object of the action being taken in the first part of the phrase. Who did I tell? I told YOU. The second you, is the subject of the second phrase. "You could always count on me."

To count on someone means to rely on someone. It means that if you need them, they will be there for you. This is the same sentiment that was expressed by our singer in last week's episode. Do you have somebody in your life that you can count on? And on the other side of things, who can always count on you?

The final word of our phrase here, "Darling" is just another "term of endearment" for someone.  We talked about terms of endearment in our first episode of this series.

The next lines say "From that day on, I made a vow, I'll be there when you want me someway, somehow"

I won't spend any time on the word "vow", since we already talked a lot about the word "vow" in our breakdown of the song "Four, Five Seconds". If you want to listen to it again, we talk about vows and promises in episode 6. For those who haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, just know that a "vow" is more or less the same thing as a "promise".

So, what does "From that day on" mean?

Well, quite simply, it means that starting on a particular day, an action is going to continue, indefinitely. That is, it's going to just keep continuing until well, maybe forever. In this case, the day is the day that he set her free, and the action is "being there when she wants him". The words "I made a vow" are a bit confusing, because technically speaking, they should be at the beginning of the phrase and followed by the word "that". He didn't "make a vow every day from that day on", that would be a bit strange. Rather, he made a vow THAT from that day on he would be there when she wants him.

So, if we wanted to word it differently, we could say, "On the day that I set you free, I made a promise that I would be there when you wanted me to be there, forever."

Does that make sense? We can also replace the word "day" with other words. For example, "From that moment on" or "From now on".

For example, "From now on, you will be able to use this phrase!"

Well that's all we have fr today., i hope you enjoyed the episode and that you learned something that you'll be able to use from now on. We'll have a new episode next week, and I will talk to you then.

As always, you can find the transcript for this episode in the description. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate it and subscribe, wherever you're listening to it! And of course, don't forget to tell your friends about us! We post a new episode every Wednesday! We also have even more English learning related content on Instagram, just search for the username "lelpodcast". Finally, if you have any questions, comments, critiques, or suggestions for songs, don't hesitate to send us a message to any of our social media accounts, or to our email address "[email protected]". We hope to hear from you soon!